SpaceX says Falcon 9 rocket is undamaged after historic landing

SpaceX made history last month when it landed a Falcon 9 rocket after launching its payload into orbit. Company CEO Elon Musk now reports that the rocket appears to be undamaged by its trip to space and back. While it looks like the rocket could easily be refurbished to fly again, that’s not the plan right now. SpaceX wants to keep this rocket on the ground as a memento — well, also for testing and study. A few new images of the recovered rocket have been posted as well.

In case you haven’t been keeping up with SpaceX news, the December 21st satellite launch was SpaceX’s first since the June 2015 ISS resupply mission ended badly. That Falcon 9 broke up several minutes after liftoff due to a faulty strut. The recent launch used an upgraded Falcon 9 with more thrust and a different strut design. Clearly, it worked.

This was the first time anyone managed to launch a rocket to orbital velocity and recover it. SpaceX tried to land the rocket on a drone ship a few times in late 2014 and early 2015, but those attempts ended in fiery crashes. All previous rocket designs have simply dropped expended stages in the ocean, which increases the cost of launches dramatically. The Falcon 9 first stage carries enough fuel to return to the launch pad and set down after sending the second stage on its way.

However, it wasn’t clear if that process would cause damage to the rocket that prevented it from being reused. According to Musk, there’s no apparent damage to the rocket. A new image (seen above) shows the Falcon 9 stage on its side in a Cape Canaveral hangar where it is being assessed. The white wedges toward the bottom are where the landing legs attached.

Before and after launch.

SpaceX does plan to fire the recovered rocket again, but it won’t be going into space. It intends to do a static fire on the launchpad as a test to prove that it’s capable of being reused, but the plan is to keep the unique rocket. The first rocket to be recovered following an orbital launch is important beyond its ability to save money on the next launch. Engineers will surely go over it in detail, and I’m sure Musk wants to display it somewhere as well.

So, when will SpaceX actually reuse one of its reusable rockets? Musk says we can expect to see this happen sometime in 2016 as the company has more than a dozen missions scheduled for the next year. Assuming those launches/landings go as well as the December mission, one of those rockets will go back into space, making history yet again.

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If I was to choose a false god, it would be SpaceX. I’m excited for what they’re bringing to the table.

beachmike

If you were to choose a false god, you might be a Muslim.

Marc GP

Do you realize that the Muslim God is exactly the same than your Christian God ?. Both religions are just forks of the Jew religion and the three of them share the same God (the differences are negligible).

Bob

you do realize that they ALL believe in a fictional story

Heinrich Spindeln

My God has bigger boobs.

random_name

Yeah, not sure where you get the Muslim part from?

Rory

Beachmike, how about thinking of religion as a path to the top of the mountain: different religions, different paths. Lets work on coming together, not tearing apart. Isn’t that what god would want?

Mr_Blastman

The picture with them side by side is weird. There are features on both rocket images that are switched from one side to another or missing altogether. Take the plus shaped thing inside the circle–it is on opposite sides but the flag is not reversed.

Perhaps it was taken from different angles?

Regardless, this is a very impressive accomplishment.

Eric J. White

might be a front/back thing.

Mr_Blastman

Yeah that’s what I’m thinking.

Jefe Mixtli

I don’t think it’s the same rocket. The ‘F’ in Falcon is actually in better condition after… plus other stuff like what you point out.

johncoryat

The “F” in the before picture looks like it was glared out. The thing is just too shiny!

Alan

I think that is the shiny metal showing through the writing.

On the photo where you can see the clean white section mid stage that must be where the LOX tank is. another posting said the exhaust would not stick where the surface was cold near the tanks.

Heinrich Spindeln

As a member of NWO, I am authorized to reveal we eat this rocket at the Xmas party, so we replaced it with our Xmas tree.

Kyle

It looks like the original picture was taken with the camera angled slightly downwards.

dc

It probably won’t be “space-worthy” after it completes whatever tests they plan on doing with it. Burning up fuel while being locked down to a launch pad is probably bad for the air frame. But it is necessary that it be done, before trying to re-use a rocket with real cargo.

johncoryat

I guess it depends on how long they test fire it for. If it’s a 2 second static test, then it’s designed for that. If they go full duration, that will probably be way outside SOP. Then again, who knows what the thing is actually designed to take in terms of stresses.

Alan

I hope they decide to spend the $200k for fuel and do a full duration burn just to show the engines can do it again.

Seattle Slew

Musk has already run ten full duration burns on his engines as a proof of concept. I agree with you though, I hope he tests this booster with a full burn test as well.

dc

I think there is a big difference between shooting through the air and being locked down while firing the engines. That will put tremendous stress on the frame.

Seattle Slew

Agreed… not to mention the stresses endured when breaking Mach, wind sheering, temperature and air density changes.

Woodwind

Buc buc buc, Musk is chicken to attempt to fly the booster again. That would be real proof that it is reusable. According to him, it would only cost two hundred grand to fuel it up and fly it again. Lets see that happen. It took a standing army and billions per flight to get the only other reusable rocket to fly again. If Musk can demonstrate gas and go again and again without having to refurbish, THEN he’ll have the breakthrough he claims.

WeaponZero

He is not chicken, the thing right now is a historical relic and he wants to keep it and study it. SpaceX plans to launch 29 rockets in 2016. They will get PLENTY more for reuse this year. So end of the day you will still see a rocket reused this year. Does it really matter to you which one it is?

And this is the first fully reusable first stage on any rocket that launches things into orbit.

Woodwind

Not the first. The first would be Shuttle.

WeaponZero

The shuttle did not have a fully reusable first stage, only partly reusable. Even the parts that were reusable were not that great due to exposure to salt water.

Woodwind

The SRBs were recovered, parachutes repacked, refueled, and launched again. The second stage, the Shuttle itself, was recovered and reused too. Only the external tank was one shot, and it was a simple and cheap shell. But the whole thing cost about $500 million a shot, 5 times the cost of a completely throwaway Saturn V moon shot. So reusability didn’t really lower launch costs.

WeaponZero

Which part of corrosive salt water did you miss?

Woodwind

Probably the part about how they were *DESIGNED* for salt water immersion.

WeaponZero

And you wonder why the re-usability bill was so high.

Seattle Slew

I think he’d be more scared to attempt a landing on a live feed… but since he’s always had his launches and landings on livestream it proves he’s not poultry. Me thinks the woodwind is just tooting some hot air.

Seattle Slew

I wonder if he ultimately plans to reuse the entire booster or just the rockets long term.

Randolph Brown

Take my word for it…I work there and have seen it!! It is the one that went up and landed. Spent today about 100 yards or so from it, and know all the folks who work on it. Not a fake….it’s the real deal!!

Paul Gaier

Until one Falcon 9 launches twice and safely returns both times can we start sipping champagne and high-fiving each other. Even the best rocket motors are risky business. Customers who spend tens or hundreds of millions of dollars on just one launch need 100% assurance that a “refurbished” rocket is just as reliable as a new one.

Bryan Meyers

It all depends on your perspective. If SpaceX were to market their rockets as 3-nines (99.9%) reliable and that reliability was really 5-nines (99.999%) for the first 10-100 launches and drops to 4-nines after, who cares? The cost per launch could drop drastically and that is what matters. If you want reliability, you have to pay more for it: that’s just the way of things.

zn

True, but 10-100 launches per rocket is probably a pretty high figure. I was more thinking that if SpaceX could reuse their rockets even three times each, that would be a significant milestone, saving roughly $40m per launch. Someone above said SpaceX has 29 scheduled launches this year, which at three times reuse would save them about $1billion.

Marc GP

Right now they are designed to be reused 10 times. :-)

Seattle Slew

But some of is don’t need an excuse to sip champagne.

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